Women in Shipbuilding
Rewriting the history of women in marine engineering in north-east England.
Introduction
In 2023-24, Historic England highlighted the role of women in shipbuilding using a collection of evocative photographs taken during the First World War.
In 2023-24, Historic England highlighted the role of women in shipbuilding using a collection of evocative photographs taken during the First World War. The photographs formed the core of an exhibition in a shopping centre in Wallsend, close to one of the shipyards where women worked. The names of the people in the photographs are not known, so we asked for help to identify these women as well as other women who had worked in the shipyards, and for people to come forward with their stories, documents, photographs, and other memorabilia.
The exhibition was displayed in several other venues subsequently and accompanied by online galleries and media interest; a major review of archival evidence (Redmayne 2024) helped establish the scope for further research; and a short film was commissioned from filmmaker Bryan Dixon to continue raising awareness of the importance of women in shipbuilding.
The project was funded by Lloyd’s Register Foundation as part of an initiative called ‘Rewriting Women into Maritime History’, designed to raise the profile of female expertise, experience and leadership from the maritime past. Through ensuring that forgotten voices are heard, Rewriting Women highlights the opportunities presented to women by maritime careers and reframes the narrative about gender equality, diversity and inclusion.
Project partners included the Women’s Engineering Society (WES), the Imperial War Museums, and Newcastle University Oral History Unit and Collective. The project was carried out in collaboration with Remembering the Past, North Tyneside Council, North Tyneside Art Studio, The Common Room, and Newcastle High School for Girls.
Women and First World War shipbuilding
Women have worked in maritime trades for many centuries, but in the First World War their direct involvement in shipbuilding and repair increased significantly.
Women have worked in maritime trades for many centuries, but in the First World War their direct involvement in shipbuilding and repair increased significantly.
In the First World War, work in the shipyards was critically important in building and repairing both warships and merchant vessels. There was a desperate need for shipping to counter U-boat attacks. Merchant ships were being targeted by U-boats including on the essential east- coast coal trade to which mines and staithes in the north east were contributing so much. Warships on escort and patrol duties against U-boats were also being sunk in large numbers. Seafarers from the north east were on the front line as soon as they left harbour.
The women shown in the exhibition were photographed in 1918 in several shipyards on the Tyne – in Wallsend, Hebburn, Howdon, and Elswick – and building a new shipyard at Haverton Hill on the Tees. Air photographs from the 1920s and 1930s – which can be accessed through Historic England’s Aerial Photo Explorer- show the shipyards and their surrounding communities alongside coal staithes and other quays and docks.
Although shipbuilding is no longer on the same scale, the heritage of yards, marine engineering and other maritime trades in the north east continues to enrich places and communities today and can contribute to their future vitality.
The First World War photographs were taken for the Ministry of Information, mostly by Horace Nicholls, who had been appointed Official Photographer of Great Britain.
At the end of the war, the photographs were transferred to the Imperial War Museum becoming part of IWM Collections.
Nicholls photographed women and men involved in all sorts of war work on the home front as a record of the contributions being made to the war effort across society. He was an experienced photographer before the war: as well as documenting women’s work, the photographs are carefully framed and semi-posed to create eye-catching and absorbing images. In most cases the women are directly engaged in their tasks: the photographs convey the skill and attention to detail in their work. The images also illustrate their distinctive workwear – uniform bonnets, dresses, smocks, and trousers– which stand out from the men in their work suits. Several women are wearing jewellery such as rings and beads, and some have triangular ‘On War Service’ badges to show they were engaged in urgent war work.
All the images can be explored in online galleries from Lloyds Register Foundation accompanying the project and via IWM collections.
These photographs show that women participated in war work not only in assembly line roles making munitions, but also in skilled and heavy engineering in the shipyards.
These photographs show that women participated in war work not only in assembly line roles making munitions, but also in skilled and heavy engineering in the shipyards. Women shipbuilders had a vital role in defeating the U-boat blockade by replacing losses and expanding the fleet of warships and merchant vessels.
Many of the vessels on which women shipbuilders worked had long and successful careers before being broken up and recycled. Although they left no physical trace, Lloyd’s Register Foundation has a rich historical record of these vessels in drawings and documents that can be explored in the Ship Plan and Survey Report collection fully digitised and explorable online. However, very few ships from this period have been preserved so, paradoxically, most of the ships that survive are those that were sunk. As the war at sea was global, the wrecks of ships built in the north east can be found all around the world. Wherever they came to rest, these historic wrecks are an important part of the industrial heritage of women shipbuilders and the north east.
After the war
At the end of the war, women were obliged to leave shipbuilding to make way for men returning from military service:
Great hopes were entertained by many women that a new profession was open to them, where they could earn good wages and where they would have some scope for their skill and intelligence. But with the signing of the Armistice all such pleasant hopes were destroyed
Women who had campaigned during the war for women to have careers in shipbuilding and other forms of engineering set up the Women’s Engineering Society in 1919 to promote engineering as a rewarding profession for women. WES celebrated its centenary in 2019 and continues to support women in engineering to fulfil their potential and to promote greater inclusivity within industry. Women’s contribution to shipbuilding in the First World War is one of the foundations for women in maritime careers today.
Impact of the project
The principal impact of the project has been to re-establish for the public, especially in communities in the north east, the role that women played in shipbuilding in the First World War.
Although these communities may have strong identities and sense of place linked to maritime sectors, the role of women in shipbuilding was little known prior to this project. The project prompted a small number of people to come forward with information about family connections – as outlined in the accompanying film – but these were less numerous than anticipated, suggesting the history of women in shipbuilding in the First World War is deeply hidden.
Correspondingly, the review of archival evidence concluded that our histories of women’s experiences in shipbuilding during the First World War remain impoverished because specific occupational narratives – like the focus on women in munition factories – have obscured women’s roles in other sectors. Nonetheless, there is a wealth of archival and oral sources from which historians would be able to provide a clearer picture of women’s work in the shipyards: a history that remains to be written (Redmayne 2024).
The project’s legacy of online content continues to underscore the historic roots of women in marine careers, to motivate academic interest in this under-researched topic, and to encourage more people to explore their family and community connections to women in shipbuilding. This project is only the start of a story that needs to be told.
About the author
Antony Firth
Further information
Redmayne, J., July 2024, Report of Newcastle University’s Oral History Unit to Review ‘Women in Shipbuilding’ during the First World War. Unpublished report for Historic England. Newcastle University OHU.
'Telling the Hidden Story of Women in Shipbuilding in the First World War in North East England #WIS'. Film by Bryan Dixon for Historic England. LRF Heritage Education Centre.
Lloyd’s Register Foundation Rewriting Women into Maritime History
Newcastle University Oral History Unit and Collective
Remembering the Past: Women in Shipbuilding in World War One
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